Where'd we leave off last night?  Oh yeah... After waving off my new custodial
friend, and waving over Richard, we ( Richard and I ) formally introduced our-
selves Volkswagon to Volkswagon, fella to fella.

Now over the last few years I've had the opportunity to meet and speak/type
at length to some pretty interesting folks but rarely have I had the pleasure
of matching a face to the lines of text that scroll off the `puter screen each
day.

Richard came off as he did in his messages to me almost daily since May...
Bright, articulate, "colorful" and enthusiastic (to almost underweigh the value
of the word... ; )) while I am sure I painted a less than "chipper" visage as
I had spent a rough night prior in some forgotten hotel somewhere in Lumberton
North Carolina trying to ascertain why cable TV in this part of the world did
NOT include The Weather Channel (tm) but did offer 12 stations of The Shoppers
Network?  BTW, I now have 8 pairs of FM radio socks if anyone is interested!!

Nonetheless Richard took me under wing and led the way (in his Rainbow 67 bus)
to the resting place of my soon to be Samba, and the home of a volks guru who
spent the next 18 hours patiently dealing with Richard and I as we swapped this
and fixed that and borrowed this tool and ......etc.,etc.

Interject ON   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Let me interject at this point to those who may be curious (Joel!) that neither
my SingleCab, nor the 21 window are anywhere near what I would call "showable"
vehicles... Granted I drove both well over 500 miles within a period of 48hrs
and they both got me where I needed to go basically within the timeframe I had
allotted, but other than the structural security of these beasts...well, the
phrase "A face only a mother could love..." kinda pops up ;)

These are both definative "Project" vehicles and require lots of TLC which we
thought we could supply better to the other persons VW than we did our own!
Actually, the inception of the trade idea came as my own bus died and I found
myself faced with having to haul gear around in the truck..Do-able, but zippo
as far as security goes and inconvienant trying to shift stuff into a small cab
every time it started to rain.  Richard on the other hand already had three
busses (21 window, his Rainbow 67, and a later model breadloaf) and felt
the need for a pick-up truck to do some light hauling in....there you go!
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Interject OFF

We worked at Sean's house (who I would highly reccomend to anyone visiting
the Raleigh area in need of some master mechanics) until the wee hours swapping
motors, unloading spare parts and shifting stuff from one vehicle to another as
I prepared to leave for Florida in the morning...

LESSON #1 Never rush anything that requires carefull torque/ft lbs
LESSON #2 Do NOT trust your judgement/memory at 12:30am
LESSON #3 What can go wrong will....

Tomorrow: The trek back...kinda

Kevin Murray (cinematographer) -FeetsFirst Films

59 Ragtop Beetle,(sitting up north!)
59 SingleCab,(in resto)
66 Deluxe Samba(finally!)
66 Sunroof Beetle (daily driver)
67 Panel Bus,(parts)
69 Beetle Baha,(project)
72 Combi Bus,(dead!)
74 412 Station Waggin.(project)

-------------****** Sparks through the Rubble ******------------------